I mean, I want to have hope, but the major first world nations of the world didn't build a god damned surveillance state over the last 40 years for nothing. Those fourteen eyes are watching.
What's coming is Hitler's Shutzstaffel on absolute fucking steroids. We used to say, regarding the Patriot Act, that the tools being developed were the kind the Nazi SS would have fucking wet dreams about.
Anne Frank wasn't followed by a GPS tracking unit & surveillance device in her pocket tied to her real name and address that she regularly used to talk with friends. Anne Frank didn't have to worry about heat-scanners that find people hidden in walls. Anne Frank didn't have to worry about the internet at the home she was being hidden in was monitored. Anne Frank was still found and murdered by the Nazis, with much less surveillance, and much lower tech.
I'm not gonna drown myself in hopium and copium. I'm ready for our ramshackle poor-man's cyberpunk world to pop off and start the Water Wars. Because that's sadly way more likely than humans getting their fucking shit together.
EDIT: You want it to get better, start organizing, even for things as simple and small as local mutual aid networks, only using encrypted channels. No, people won't like it. Yes, they're hard to use. If you want to not be constantly infiltrated by people trying to stop you doing good works, go ahead and keep organizing in cleartext. If we want to actually make headway against corrupt governments and corporations yes that means you'll have to learn to do some shit on your own and it won't be as fancy and clean as the corporate option. Stop relying on the groups oppressing you for the tools to fight your oppression by them. The groups oppressing you will never give you the tools to dismantle them.
Yeah, I'm soon going to be testing out technologies like Meshtastic and ensuring I have a basic survival kit in case natural disaster, revolution, martial law, or some other shit hitting the fan.
If we can't trust the people we've put trust in to do good for us, then we have to re-make every aspect of our society from the ground up.
(Honestly speaking about my government, I have faith in my province and city, but if PP gets into federal office I will be very worried).
This is the way.
Whether we like it or not we rely on modern technology these days. I'd like to see more Mutual Aid Group activity driven to build community mesh-networks and the like. Bring back the ideology of the barbed wire phone networks and community communications. We sold off every bit of communications to corporations, and that's a problem.
LoRa texting devices are also pretty dope, too.
from the ground up.
An important point. Real change never comes from the top down. Stop looking for leaders and start being a community.
I mean, I want to have hope, but the major first world nations of the world didn’t build a god damned surveillance state over the last 40 years for nothing
Tinfoil hat
I'm 100% convinced the drones in the news lately are prototyping a new mass surveillance program to be kicked off after Trump takes office, likely funded by Musk, likely for purposes related to his planned mass deportations, and so little is being done about it because folks are being told Jan 20 isn't that far away, you better not.
/Tinfoil hat
My slightly less tinfoil hat option B is that it's only your garden variety mass surveillance program being piloted, kicked off under Biden, and that will be unlikely to be curtailed under Trump.
Because as a veteran, I refuse to believe that craft the military weren't intimately familiar with would receive nothing but a shrug in reaction to this, yet that's all that has happened.
I'm actually with you on both of those possibilities. It was some of the first stuff that came into my head in regards to that issue, as well.
While we're tinfoil hatting, it's worth noting the weird uptick in UFO/suddenly "UAP" stuff the last few years. UFOs have often meant "we're covering up some other program, LOOK OVER HERE DUMMIES!!!!" and it just sort of appeared, blew up, then has simmered in the background with no resolution. As UFO stuff is wont to do. And a lot of Republicans have weirdly jumped on board (Rubio, et al.).
They're watching, but here's the thing: at a certain volume, seeing everything actually becomes a detriment as the noise creates false positives and drowns out useful data.
If EVERYONE is pissed off, angry, and posting about it online etc then sorting out "angry enough to do something" gets harder. It'll be interesting to see what the "right to bear arms" folks in government come up with when they're the ones in the crosshairs rather than schoolkids
Correct.
When it comes down to the necessary facts, it's a numbers game. There are so many more pissed off people than there are in power and wealth. They'd essentially have to massacre incredible amounts of people without destroying their own means of making income.
Guess how much a health care insurance org makes without people to insure?
$0. Interestingly, the same amount we believe it should make with people to insure as well.
poopium
Industrial society surely sucks.
Imagine how much good could be done if we just took Elon Musk's stuff and used it to fund public education, public healthcare, poverty reduction, drug abuse treatment, and the like. Instead that shit strain is hoarding all that money that came from our pockets.
EDIT: Like...instead of letting him DOGE NASA for the benefit of SpaceX, what if we just took SpaceX and folded it in to NASA?
I am going to be extremely sad considering the amount of research and science that's about to become privatized. Not just NASA but other government agencies and research grants.
#doubt
Most people live comfortably enough that they won't radicalize, we're far from France before the revolution
Im hoping the nutjobs who become school shooters for attention realize they will get WAY more attention if they are a CEO shooter instead.
I've always wondered how this wasn't always the case. You're pissed off at ______ to the extent that you're willing to commit murder and sacrifice your freedom over it, so you go and shoot up.... a bunch of elementary school students? Dafuq? Why? Target the source of your problem, not some random kids...
It got snuffed, but it's worth remembering that 13 years ago, Occupy Wall Street did happen. The path from self education to understanding the real villains has been roughly identical for most of recorded history, and right now if you still read books the truth is pretty much everywhere and undeniable.
Ever since OWS was unceremoniously snuffed without actual reform, I've been waiting for a nice blue shell thrower to show up. It's been the only remaining path available the entire time. One person walks that road, and suddenly it becomes vastly easier for others to follow...
Yes the median income is something like 80k. The mode however is still firmly buried in the 35-40k segment. Fun fact, you only need 1% of the population for a region to conduct a viable insurgency. Less for highly concentrated places like NY and LA. You need 10% to provide material aid like money and shelter. Which is a different, lower level, of radicalization.
So NYC by traditional standards would need 82,000 people to be radicalized enough to commit violent acts. In reality because it's so dense they could easily do it with a thousand, and several thousand supporters. And this is for big boy insurgency stuff where the police have to engage in extended firefights just to get into a neighborhood. For terrorism campaigns the numbers are even smaller. 2 people paralyzed the entire state of Maryland and Northern Virginia in 2002. A couple hundred dedicated people not trying to hold territory could easily shut down wall street until the NYPD turned it into the Baghdad Green Zone.
The rich haven't even begun to find out yet. And they sent the working class for a 20 year premier education in asymmetric warfare. This is why some of us are so pissed at them. We're going to be living in the next Afghanistan if they don't take their boot off the neck of the working class.
About the mode, which you gave as $35-40k. I latched onto that because it doesn't mean a lot.
For those who don't know what a statistical "mode" is, it's the most common data point in a sample. Mode is most useful when there are a small number of possibilities, like answers to multiple choice questions. Incomes from zero to billions have so many individual values, the single one that occurs most often is meaningless, so statisticians usually give a modal range. I couldn't find data on the exact range $35-40k, but on statista only 10% of Americans are between $35k and $50k, so your range is more like 3% of the people. The point is, saying half of Americans make more than $80k and half make less seems a lot more significant than saying a small number are "buried" in a very narrow zone.
Anyway, I totally agree that the wealthy call the shots in America and it sucks. But really what's the point of some exciting stuff that happened in Maryland and Northern Virginia in 2002 when it's 22 years later and those place don't look any different? People can fantasize about action-packed clashes with NYPD in the streets, but the long-term result (or lack of it) is what we should be thinking about. Most people are law-abiding and don't want to live in the Wild West. When your radical heroes start shooting, the vast majority won't be dodging bullets and cheering, they'll hide indoors and call the police. Lasting change has to be done in an organized way. I don't know how to make that happen either, but a bunch of badass video game characters ain't gonna do it.
That comfort will quickly slip away as society starts to crumble.
Panem et circenses. It worked for thousands of years.
Most people live comfortably enough
And this why kamala lost the elections
Except not. It was the working class that voted against her. It's because they wanted more and Kamala campaigned on being more of the same while Trump campaigned on breaking everything.
one can hope.
im not holdin my breath though. even luigi there wasnt one of those stuck at the bottom with nowhere to go but violence. hes a little rich kid that acted out of conscience.
a better example is that kid that nearly saved us another trump administration by inches, but it hasnt exactly been a trend.
He acted out of pain. Literally.
Us public official and a dead corporate parasite don't get the same level protections, plus half the country supports team red no matter what.
Nobody but owners and their bootlickers support a parasite tho hence why plebs got unity this one time.
Or just rich people getting stronger and ever more lethal security teams...
If I learned something over the years, is that people are FUCKING STUPID, as in no matter how vile, greedy, treacherous pieces of shit are the candidates, they will always vote for the same person because they truly believe that they're doing the right thing. And no matter how much proof or information you give them, they will delude themselves that you're trying to trick them with propaganda.
At the end, I simply gave up on the idea of people not being brainless pieces of meat.
I think you're right but incomplete. There are idiots who vote for the same people no matter what, and there are idiots who place their lofty principles above getting results - in this case refusing to vote and blaming the Democratic Party for not supplying good enough options to click on - that's their reason Trump got back into office, not because all they personally did was bitch and moan online and stick their hands in their pockets when they could have stopped him. There are people dumb enough to delude themselves that way.
Don't underestimate the amount of people that vote strictly based off culture war bullshit as well. I'm Canadian and I see a lot of working class people that happily vote for the cons to fight "wokeness" and "dei" because god forbid non white/straight people exist. Seen lots of comments complaining about how white people are "villainized" etc in my local sub (yes I still use reddit for niche stuff that isn't here) and tons of dog whistles about minorities, especially us indigenous people.
As long as they target people they don't like, an unfortunate amount of people will happily vote against their own interest just in the hope of making "the wrong people" have a shittier life.
The rich already control the narrative and peoples mind. They effectively got whole nations to vote against their own interests. They are absolutely fine. This is copium.
Letting them get this far will be a painful lesson for us.
X for doubt
OP is fucking delusional.
We all need more Luigi.
They barely mix with us, peasants. They will probably follow this trend and live in inexpugnable, extremely well defended citadels. Apartheid, in a word.
I work in the municipal office of a tiny city that's an enclave for the super rich. We're entirely surrounded by a major city, but we're a different jurisdiction.
Of course, I don't get to live there. Literally every resident is a millionaire or better. The average new house being built there is about 8 million dollars, and we have a lot of housing churn.
That is, people will buy a 5 million dollar house and tear it down to build a 12 million dollar house.
All that to say that I interact with these people all the time. They almost invariably don't realize how out of touch they are, because their neighbors are also millionaires.
You'd think it's a super nice city, but other than the houses it's fairly run down. They don't want good roads or sidewalks because then people would use them. The city was essentially founded to prevent bus lines from the major city from having stops near the fancy district.
Over half the municipal employees are cops, and their main job is keeping homeless people away.
All this work goes into isolating the rich from the poor, and it's worked so well that most of the rich don't even realize it's happening.
That never works though. Like literally it's never worked.
I hope so. I really really hope so. If not, then we're headed for an incredibly terrible future of the kind that used to exist in dystopian fiction.
So....what you going to do about it?
I'm having a meeting this week to decide what we do next.
Just in case you need: https://mastodon.social/@elonjet
Educate, agitate, organize
And they will probably try out of fear to take Americans' guns, which is going to be hilarifying
It really pisses me off that we find ourselves here again https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oKZgXvpm0c&t=263s. (its the Canada asylum scene from handmaid's tale)
because of the DNC's corrupt desire to game the electoral system to maximize for the most funding -- dirty or not-- rather than whats good for society. Pelosi's corruption as evidenced by her getting FILTHY rich off insider trading is not a one-off, its systematic and formalized at every leadership level of the party (Exactly the same as it is in the rethuglican party). As is enabling AIPAC's genocide and land theft, against the wishes of the majority of Democratic party voters.
People need to choose now: fund and enable Progressivism and join the "woke dirty hippies" or more of the same traitorous "woopsie" failure from centrism, and Putin and Netenyahus hands crushing whats left of this country. People may not even have a chance to exercise this choice, much less another after this one-- so the last minute to save ourselves has arrived, if not passed.
Time to choose. Supporting a third party (or a much more progressive dem party where we toss the centrist leadership to the curb) needs to start now, not in 3 and a half years.
Aww cute you think that a 3rd party would ever be viable on a national level at this point.
This is why we need to change our election laws though for real so we can vote for who we want without taking votes from the most likely winner or other acceptable candidate.
I'd rather have a parliamentary system to be honest, the way congress works and electing our reps directly vs voting for parties just lends itself to the two party problem and that's not stopping anytime soon by the looks of it.
<pfft> Let them eat cake.
You mean like every decade before now? They just used to be able to explain it away to themselves by imagining the rest of the population was just stupid and foolish, because they kept to themselves behind the walls of their daycares, surrounded by yes men.
Who is we ? are you not bearing witness to the fawning obsiquisness ?
This disposition to admire, and almost to worship, the rich and the powerful, and to despise, or, at least, to neglect persons of poor and mean condition, though necessary both to establish and to maintain the distinction of ranks and the order of society, is, at the same time, the great and most universal cause of the corruption of our moral sentiments - Adam Smith
I want to believe that the working class will finally take back its power, the first step of which will be forming strong and effective unions. The second step is ensuring high taxes on the wealthy, coupled with accountability for how that tax revenue is spent
But I look at all the previous decades of failure, and I recommend that young people in particular should make alternative plans in case they have to fend in a hostile social, political and economic environments
1—do nothing else but learn some skill or trade (or several) which you can use to get paid
2—don’t excessively drink, don’t excessively do drugs, don’t excessively sleep around, and get and stay fit
3—create a network of friends and family, but don’t stress if you cannot. Get a hobby, try to get married, but don’t stress if you don’t. Cut out toxic people and family from your life
4—do whatever else you care about if you’ve done the above
Conventional wisdom still helps, don’t be fooled by people who say that it doesn’t work
I want to believe that the working class will finally take back its power, the first step of which will be forming strong and effective unions. The second step is ensuring high taxes on the wealthy, coupled with accountability for how that tax revenue is spent
Here in Australia our centre left party, The Greens, support both of those things, and other imitatives like free dental care etc alas they don't get the votes needed to advance their policies. We have a preferential voting system (ranked choice) but we still have centre right and far right domination of the political zeitgiest.
Don't even need to take up the rifle and pitchfork, just need to put numbers on a ballot paper in a differnt order, alas that seems beyond us.
What's wrong with sleeping around?
And what's the point of getting married?
I understand the sentiment, drugs, drinking, and sleeping around is a way to have an enjoyable time, but it's not a way to create meaningful relationships.
None of those three things are, by themselves, bad. But if you do them to excess, it can replace a real, stable social network.
The point of getting married is that you legally tie yourself to another person in a way that is recognized by larger institutions. If you don't have a spouse, or LEGAL family, then it can be difficult to make co-decisions. One of the major reasons why same sex marriage was such a huge deal, was that end of life support and care was almost impossible. You could live with someone for 30 years, but then when they're in a coma in the hospital, you can't legally visit them, or make medical decisions for them.
I agree with you about sentiment. Idk if actions will be taken but I feel like the CEO shooting did set a certain tone.
Now the question is, will that create further escalating tension or would it be repackage and sold to us as a media trope to show us that “hey, some oligarchs aren’t that bad.”
Mmm I think more will happen. There's some very organized groups who are armed to the teeth and unafraid.
No, it isn't.
This was one pissed-off kid out of 330,000,000 who are being purposefully kept in poverty, and nothing fundamental will change as long as 99% of voters are only going to pick a candidate based on team color.
If only.
We can only hope.
...and how few of us ever take any tangible action - but they already know that.
Oh yes, let there be blood.
Terroristic threats! Bake him away, toys!
None of this matters in a ubiquitous surveillance state, which is either here now or a couple years off.
It's been here for a while, smart phones were basically the nail in the coffin. Switching to GNU/Linux is not enough, there are proprietary backdoors in your BIOS firmware. Nearly everything we buy is bugged by default. Laws need to be in place and the education system needs to be required to teach about libre software. If we don't do this, all hope is lost for privacy in the future.
Nobody is making you carry a phone I bet, it's a choice. People can still do stuff offline and in private when needed.
